Cornflower book group

Reading habits

'I fear that reading aloud is another pleasure that has gone by the board with the coming of mechanised amusements. This is sad from a family point of view, as there is no bond like shared love for some story read aloud and enjoyed round the fire.

In my family we often say, "Do you remember that Christmas when we first read The Turn of the Screw, or those holidays when we discovered The King with Two Faces?" My husband read his own books to us aloud chapter by chapter as he wrote them, and our children were always given (by me) something to do with their hands, drawing or sewing, for children are fidgety creatures, and are a restless audience if their hands are not occupied.'

"What I thought mostly when I was a child was, 'I want to be in this story with them. [...] I didn't want to stop being myself; I didn't want to be them; I wanted to put myself into the story and enjoy things happening to me. And in the private, secret, inviolable space that opened out miraculously between the printed page and my young mind, that sort of thing happened all the time. It's the state of mind in which you can hear the voice of your daemon. In fact, there are probably daemon voices whispering to us all the time, and we've forgotten how to hear them."

Philip Pullman on childhood reading, from the essay Imaginary Friends, part of the forthcoming Daemon Voices.

"Part of the reason to own books is that they create a record of our past: passions, missteps, aspirations and intentions. They are the physical manifestations of what we were thinking at the different times in our lives. People can look at our bookshelves and know something about us, who we are and who we hoped we would be. "

" In the home of my childhood there was a room we called 'The Little Bookroom'. True, every room in the house could have been called a bookroom. Our nurseries upstairs were full of books. Downstairs my father's study was full of them. They lined the dining-room walls, and overflowed into my mother's sitting-room, and up into the bedrooms. It would have been more natural to live without clothes than without books. As unnatural not to read as not to eat.

Of all the rooms in the house, the Little Bookroom was yielded up to books as an untended garden is left to its flowers and weeds. There was no selection or sense of order here. In dining-room, study, and nursery there was choice and arrangement; but the Little Bookroom gathered to itself a motley crew of strays and vagabonds, outcasts from the ordered shelves below, the overflow of parcels bought wholesale by my father in the sales-rooms. Much trash, and more treasure. Riff-raff and gentlefolk and noblemen. A lottery, a lucky dip for a child who had never been forbidden to handle anything between covers. That dusty bookroom, whose windows were never opened, through whose panes the summer sun struck a dingy shaft where gold specks danced and shimmered, opened magic casements for me through which I looked out on other worlds and times than those I lived in: worlds filled with poetry and prose and fact and fantasy. [...]

When I crept out of the Little Bookroom with smarting eyes, no wonder that its mottled gold-dust still danced in my brain, its silver cobwebs still clung to the corners of my mind. No wonder that many years later, when I came to write books myself, they were a muddle of fiction and fact and fantasy and truth. I have never quite succeeded in distinguishing one from the other [...] Seven maids with seven brooms, sweeping for half-a-hundred years, have never managed to clear my mind of its dust of vanished temples and flowers and kings, the curls of ladies, the sighing of poets, the laughter of lads and girls: those golden ones who, like chimney-sweepers, must all come to dust in some little bookroom or other - and sometimes, by luck, come again for a moment to light."

"Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different. And while we're on the subject, I'd like to say a few words about escapism. I hear the term bandied about as if it's a bad thing. As if 'escapist' fiction is a cheap opiate used by the muddled and the foolish and the deluded, and the only fiction that is worthy, for adults or for children, is mimetic fiction, mirroring the worst of the world the reader finds herself in. If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with (and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real. As J.R.R. Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers."

The chapter on the place books have in our homes and in our lives provides advice and food for thought: for example, regarding unread books, " 'sometime' means never", Marie Kondo says; sorting your books with a view to disposing of some requires you to move all of them from shelves to floor and then pick up each in turn and gauge your reaction to it as you handle it (she explains why this method works); she suggests keeping a small collection which she calls 'the personal Book Hall of Fame', and any book which gives only "moderate pleasure" should forfeit its place on the shelf; and she reports from personal experience that having fewer books "increases the impact" of what one reads.

The comments on yesterday's post included mention of some reading resolutions, chiefly of the 'to read only from the TBR pile' type! (I see Lyn's adopting that one, too.)

I'd love to know what, if anything, everyone else is planning: to read more than last year, or more widely? To venture into unfamiliar genres? To take on challenges such as Simon's century of books? To join a book group? (we have one, if the online format suits you). Perhaps you're looking to adopt new reading habits such as giving up more readily on books which you're not enjoying, or finishing one book before you start another? Are there any literary anniversaries you intend to mark in your reading? - 2014 is the centenary year for Patrick O'Brian and Dylan Thomas, for instance.

Talking about discovering a history of psychoanalysis in the 'Land of Saints', i.e. Morocco, in French, in a down-at-heel bookshop in Casablanca, Alexander McCall Smith* goes on:

"This book was irresistible. It is a mistake not to buy books as unlikely as that; I once spotted a large tome on monastic sign language in a used books store in Toronto but caviled at the outrageous price. Returning to Scotland, I regretted my failure to buy the book: of course I would have loved to have had it, with its lengthy photographic section showing Trappist monks signing their various messages: 'The Abbot says that bell must be rung ... We must plant potatoes again this year.' That sort of thing.

I returned to Toronto the following year and made my way to the bookstore in question. Going up to the desk, I asked the proprietor whether by any chance - and I said I knew it was a remote one - they had in stock a book on the sign language of monks. He looked at me in astonishment that shortly became delight. 'As it happens,' he began ..."

Have you ever had a similar experience, coming upon something delightfully recondite or special, leaving it behind, regretting not buying it, perhaps even returning to find it again?

I ask that because I often do, usually when I've just met a reviewing deadline and am suddenly free for a bit to read anything I want. I have a great deal to choose from - and thus you'd be forgiven for rolling your eyes heavenward and saying that I'm spoilt for choice - but it's finding the right book for the moment and the time I have available that can be tricky. I've spent ages today considering the options and as I write I'm still not sure, though I am toying with a re-read.

I was going to say that perhaps Alex's Book Jar is the solution for future indecision, but then it's not so much a case of indecision as of a simple search, scouring the shelves until the perfect book pops up.

Much has been made of the length of Eleanor Catton's Man Booker Prize-winning Victorian sensation novel The Luminaries, and at 832 pages it is by any standards long, but why - for that reason alone - would anyone baulk at reading it?

I ask because I've seen various comments on this and other long books along the lines of "I couldn't read a book that long". Granted, if a book is boring, poorly written, distasteful, of no intrinsic interest, and so on, the reader is not going to stick with it beyond 50 or 100 pages, never mind 800, but if it is none of the above but instead is gripping, beautifully crafted, mysterious ... why wouldn't you wish to continue and stay the course?

Clearly, if you had to read a long book for a deadline of some sort, to discuss at a book group, say, the limited reading time at your disposal might make it impossible, but under no such pressure, why would you not just settle down and enjoy the ride?

If you are someone who instinctively passes over long books in favour of short ones, please do tell us why. Is it that you crave variety such as a constantly changing literary landscape, a wide range of voices, difference in pace and rhythm, and a fuller colour palate than that which one book read over what is necessarily a long period might offer? And conversely, if you're drawn to long books over shorter ones, can you explain their essential charm?

"Some people won't turn down the pages. Others won't place the book face down, pages splayed. Some won't dare make a mark in the margin.

Books exist to impart their worlds to you, not as beautiful objects to save for some other day. We implore you to fold, crack and scribble on your books whenever the desire takes you. Underline the good bits, exclaim 'YES!' and 'NO!' in the margins. Invite others to inscribe and date the frontispiece. Draw pictures, jot down phone numbers and web addresses, make journal entries, draft letters to friends or world leaders. Scribble down ideas for a novel of your own, sketch bridges you want to build, dresses you want to design. Stick postcards and pressed flowers between the pages.

When next you open the book you'll be able to find the bits that made you think, laugh and cry the first time round [...] Favourite books should be naked, faded, torn, their pages spilling out. Love them like a friend, or at least a favourite toy. Let them wrinkle and age along with you."

Well, that's all quite uncompromising! Where do you stand on this? Do you prefer your books pristine, as I do, or is condition unimportant? Do you doodle and scribble notes, so that the book becomes a record of your life and thoughts during the period you were reading it, or do you prefer to leave little or no trace?

Click to enlarge.

On the subject of marginalia, here's a picture of the 1476 edition of John Duns Scotus' Questiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum which I saw at Innerpeffray,
and although I can't read his notes, I do admire the beautiful
penmanship of the man who took to the margins to express himself there.

It's fascinating to hear about the place books and reading have in other countries and cultures, and Madeline's post here - following her recent visit to Iceland - links to a very interesting article about the Jolabokaflod or Icelandic Christmas Book Flood.

According to the article, not only does Iceland publish more books per capita than any other country, "the culture of giving books as presents is very deeply rooted in how families perceive Christmas as a holiday", and by the sound of it, no set of presents would be complete without a bookish element. While in the UK and US, "very few people buy lots of books", and thus many people buy few or no books, book-buying in Iceland is much more widespread with most people buying several books a year. If you read on through the article you'll also see mention of the Bokatidindi or book catalogue which is distributed free to every home by the Icelandic Publishers Association - and crucially is read - and which thus starts the annual 'book flood' around this time of year. More power to you, sensible Icelanders!

I couldn't leave this subject without at least a token reference to Icelandic books themselves, though the only one I've read at all recently is Sjón's The Blue Fox, but that post links back to the great sagas - which could be said to have forged the Icelandic literary tradition - which I lapped up as a student, and I do have two novels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson waiting to be read.

I do hope this advert hasn't been scripted and is really all the children's own words, but either way it's a great reminder of how a young reader can be 'lost' in a book.

Mr. C. tells a story of his childhood: at school during break one day he was so taken up with The Hobbit that he was completely oblivious to the fact that a classmate had dropped and smashed a bottle of milk right beside his desk. Does this capacity to enter a fictional world - and leave the real one - inevitably diminish as we grow older, I wonder.

Bronze statue of St. Edmund of Abingdon by Rodney Munday, St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. There are more views of him here, and apparently students are often to be found keeping him company, reading on the seat beside him.

I think we talked about holiday reading way back, but why not revisit it now with a few questions to gauge your habits - unless of course 'everyone' is away and no-one's around to answer them! Here goes, anyway:

- Have you been on holiday recently, and what did you read while you were away?

- Did your reading have some connection with the place you were visiting?

- Was your reading matter typical of what you read when you're at home, or does a trip away give you the chance to read something you don't usually pick up?

- If the latter, would you describe your holiday reading as light, or does freedom from work and household responsibilities give you space and time to tackle something heavier than usual?

- Have you ever found a great book (one you hadn't read before) in a holiday house, or have you found good local shops and done lots of book-buying on holiday?

(Re. Summer In February, it's been on my wish list for a while so when I saw it in Waterstones yesterday I bought it and might take it with me when I go away. Have you read it or seen the film?)

"It is not because of my pleasure in the art of writing, though that has been very great. It is because [books] have taken me so far beyond the narrow limits of my own experience and have so greatly enlarged my sense of the complexity of life: of its consuming darkness, and also - thank God - of the light which continues to struggle through."

That's as good a reason as any to read, and unless our reading follows a particularly narrow path, it is one which will apply to most of us. But what else is there?

Finding it hard to analyse, I took as an example the first and third books I mentioned in the last post, ones which I found particularly powerful and effective and enjoyed enormously, and could commend for various qualities such as strong narrative 'pull', beautifully realised setting, characters who invite empathic engagement, economy, balance, restraint and regularity in the unfolding of the story which must itself be finished and complete (i.e. no 'joins' visible), deep but understated passion - if they were pieces of music they would send shivers down your spine.

That being so, why do I seek such books and rejoice when I find them?

The word which came to mind when I considered that question was 'exquisite', defined by the OED thus: "extremely beautiful and delicate; intensely felt; highly sensitive or discriminating". A book of which that can be said provokes in this reader an emotional reaction (albeit at one remove from that of 'real' life, and to a greater or lesser degree according to subject matter), and a correspondingly positive and visceral response to the book's aesthetic in the widest sense. Experiencing any art form is to go in pursuit of perfection (back to 'exquisite' again), so that, I suppose, is why I read.

Way back at the beginning of the year I asked whether you had made any plans for your reading over the coming months, or had resolved to adopt some scheme or acquire a new habit in relation to it.

As we are now half way through 2013 I thought I'd invite you to let us know how you are doing. If you commented on the initial post do please give us an update, and if you didn't comment in January but have stuck to a resolution or followed a plan (or not!), it would be great to hear about it.

The most common goal from the January post was to read from the TBR pile as much as possible, while others were to venture into less frequented genres, and read at long last authors whose work was on the 'would like to read' list. Some people had a target number of books in view for the year, others simply wanted to devote more time to reading. Whatever you decided, I hope it's going well and your plans are letting you savour your reading.

Bookmarks is Random House's new "consumer insight panel". It's been set up for an initial nine month pilot period to gather opinion from readers via polls, surveys and discussions on subjects such as covers, genres, digital reading and so on. If you're interested in joining - and members will get previews of forthcoming titles, among other things, follow the link above.

'Yes, it came this morning, but I've been so busy, I had a thousand things to do before lunch and I was lunching out and I was at Molyneux's this afternoon. I don't know when I shall have a moment to get down to it.'

I thought with melancholy how an author spends months writing a book, and may be puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread til the reader has nothing else in the world to do."

That's W. Somerset Maugham in The Razor's Edge speaking as himself, and ruefully of course, for how else would an author feel when that which represents years of time, effort and expertise goes unremarked and unregarded?

As I'm here to spread the word so that the books I read or receive will in turn find their wider readership with a little help from these pages among others, I must press on with posting the recent arrivals, and today's book sounds as though it's one to look out for.

"In Florence, everyone has a passion. With sixty thousand souls crammed into a cobweb of clattering streets, countless alleys, cloisters and churches, they live their lives in the narrow world between walls. Nino Latini knows that if you want to survive without losing yourself completely, you've got to have a passion.

But Nino's greatest gift will be his greatest curse. Son of a butcher and nephew of great painter Fra Filippo Lippi, Nino can taste things that other people cannot. Every flavour, every ingredient comes alive for him as vividly as a painting and he puts his artistry to increasingly extravagant use.

In an age of gluttony and conspicuous consumption, his unique talent leads him into danger. His desire for the beautiful Tessina Delmazza and his longing to create the perfect feast could prove deadly. Nino must flee Florence to save his life and if he ever wants to see his beloved again, he must entrust himself to the tender mercies of fortune, and battle each of the deadly sins.

Appetite is a story of lethal longing, the sensuous life of art and food against a backdrop of deadly power-plays and a city that won its place in history with equal measures of lust, genius and treachery."